‘It’s getting scary’: Rising gas prices bring frustration to Houston residents

HOUSTON – Elyse Vandermolen is like many residents of Houston — a Texan frustrated by watching the price per gallon tick higher at the gas pump while the oil-producing state she calls home is set for record exports because of the war in Iran.

“It just makes your eyes pop out when you fill up the tank,” Vandermolen told The Canadian Press at a Shell station Tuesday.

U.S. President Donald Trump has been boasting that empty supertankers are approaching the Gulf Coast as the conflict in Iran causes an unprecedented global supply chain disruption due to the nearly six-week closure of the Strait of Hormuz.

North American oil companies will see a boost in revenues. That’s unlikely to result in lower costs for Texans at the pump.

Vandermolen said that while Texans understand there’s global demand for American oil exports, it doesn’t mitigate the hit to their wallets.

“We are all asking each other why is it not working itself out since we’re not importing oil,” she said.

Texans still pay some of the lowest gas prices in the United States but the Houston Chronicle reported that the city’s average cost jumped by 4.4 cents per gallon just in the last week.

Vandermolen was travelling with Lyn Sheridan. They exhibit dogs at shows in Texas and other nearby states, meaning they spend a lot of time on the road.

Sheridan said it usually costs around $40 to fill her car’s tank but the last time she went to the pump it cost her more than $60. She and Vandermolen are not changing their travel plans yet — but both said they want to see the conflict wrapped up quickly.

“It’s been a mess,” Sheridan said. “It really has.”

Due to the region’s vast size, Houstonians spend a larger portion of their budgets on transportation than the average American household, said Robyn Egbert of the Houston-Galveston Area Council.

Drivers in the region face some of the longest commutes in the nation and typical households spend nearly 20 per cent of their budget on transportation, Egbert said in an email. A $1 increase in the price of gasoline adds about $1,183 to a Houston family’s annual expenses, she added.

Trump took Texas in the 2024 presidential election after promising no more wars, closure of the southern border and measures to tackle the cost of living.

Brandon Rottinghaus, a political science professor at the University of Houston, said that despite Trump’s sweep, urban areas in the state are less staunchly Republican than their rural counterparts and may see more bellwether voters.

The looming November midterm elections are testing political polarity nationally. There’s a high-profile contested Senate seat in Texas and Democrat James Talarico has pulled in huge fundraising hauls.

Experts say it may be difficult — but not impossible — for Democrats to take control of the Senate. They have better chances in the House, where Republicans currently hold a narrow majority.

“The increased price of oil as a short-term gain, uncertainty about the war’s duration and how global markets will react will create unknown factors,” Rottinghaus said.

Rising oil prices are being met with mixed feelings in Texas. There’s an economic upside — increased oil revenues — alongside rising costs for many families.

“You can imagine, obviously, this divide is a little bit challenging because not everybody’s going to benefit equally from rising oil prices, but the state as a whole definitely benefits,” Rottinghaus said.

He points to a similar pattern of costs and benefits in Canada. Canadian oil and gas producers are anticipating higher profits this year due to the conflict in the Middle East, but prices at Canadian pumps have also increased.

Alberta crude oil makes its way to refineries in Texas, said Rory Johnston, a Toronto-based oil market researcher and founder of Commodity Context. The supertankers now headed to the Gulf Coast are likely to pick up some of that Canadian crude, he added.

“I’ll be watching over the next couple weeks to see if we do start to see an uptick in those Canadian re-exports,” he said.

Johnston’s modelling shows that 13 million barrels of production in global oil stocks are being held back each day by the war. If this pattern continues, the result could be more strategic global releases — which Canada committed to earlier this year — or price increases. But it’s still all speculation, he said.

North America, Johnston said, is likely seeing the cheapest fuel in the world right now. The North American energy market is deeply integrated but it’s not free from global price shocks, he added.

Johnston’s social media post showing a map of oil tanker flows to the United States was picked up by Trump on social media last week. While Johnston said it was surreal to see his post on the U.S. president’s account, he added Trump did not dwell on his deeper analysis about rising costs for North America.

“My worry, of course, is that Trump only saw the upside,” Johnston said.

The more other countries are willing to pay for oil from the United States, the more likely it is that many North American consumers will see higher prices at the pumps.

While filling up their vehicle at an Exxon station in Houston on Tuesday, Jasmine Keys and Leonard Sterling were thinking hard about how the portion of their household budget going toward commuting keeps growing.

Keys is a private chef for Noladates Cajun Eats and a tax preparer in the sprawling city of more than 2.3 million people. That means a lot of time spent driving.

They said they estimate the rising cost of gasoline has added an extra $80 a day to their household expenses. They’re looking into whether they can afford an electric vehicle.

“With the gas prices rising, it’s getting scary,” Keys said. “I mean, you just really never know what’s next.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published April 15, 2026.